


Tinderbox

by molegria



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Kristanna Week 2018, Romantic Comedy, Squabbling, but then patch things up immediately, you just know these two squabble over silly things on a regular basis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 10:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molegria/pseuds/molegria
Summary: Kristoff and Anna get stranded on a cabin in the middle of a storm… and it kind of sucks. A three-hit combo for Kristanna Week 2018 prompts "remember", "shelter" and "midnight".





	Tinderbox

**Author's Note:**

> No dating apps make an appearance in this story. It did, however, make me (a non-native English speaker) realize from where the dating app gets its name!

In the dark, she finally manages to land a viable spark on the char cloth: the tiny ember picks up and pulses briefly - but then meets a premature death when the door is slammed open and a gush of wet wind storms into the room.

 

"Ugh,  _no_ ," Anna cries, blowing on the cloth and shielding it with her hands, to no avail. She turns to the source of the disruption and glares at Kristoff's vague outline as he shuts the door and dumps their picnic basket on the table by the window. He fumbles with his clothes; she hears a heavy _plop_  and assumes he took off his sweater.

 

"You still haven't...? Here, let me," he huffs, crouching down next to her.

 

"You're dripping all over the tinder," she says, pushing the tinderbox away from him.

 

" _Anna_ ," Kristoff demands, extending his open palm. She hesitates for one second, two, but hands him the flint and steel with a sigh. After three harsh strikes of metal against stone, the char cloth ignites. He touches the tinder with the glowing tip of charred fabric, blowing steadily on it to keep it alight. "There's more wood by the door, on the corner. I saw it when I came in."

 

Anna slides back on the floor, away from the small fire Kristoff has managed to start. The little spark of light doesn't reach much farther than a couple of feet, so she feels her way towards the entrance of the cabin, patting the backrests of the chairs. The tip of her foot finds a basket in the corner of the room and she grabs as many logs as she can fit in her arms, which is pretty much all there is.

 

Little by little, light and heat fill the small wooden lodge as Kristoff sets fire to the logs and adds them to the fireplace. He closes the lid of the tinderbox and puts it back on the mantelpiece, then plops down in front of the fire and sighs heavily.

 

Anna sits beside him by the fire and fidgets with the drenched hem of her skirt. The silence stretches for a moment.

 

"I know how to use a flint and steel," she says, looking at the fire. "We have matches at the castle, but Gerda taught me how to use it a few years ago. In case we ran out and I had to light my fireplace during the night."

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kristoff nodding. He's hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees. "Your hands were wet."

 

"Yours were wetter."

 

"Yours were shaking." He spares her a brief glance, scowling. "I told you a storm was coming."

 

Anna takes a deep breath, hundreds of spiteful things to say lining up in her mind, but decides to stay silent. Outside, the rain falls relentlessly, rattling the roof and washing the window panes.

 

Yes, that morning he'd told her a storm was coming, but it hadn't discouraged her. In fact, she had read this very scenario countless times in her favorite novels: the young couple caught in a tempest finds shelter in a quaint cottage in the woods and consummates their love amidst solitude and fear. Of course, when she played the scene in her mind, the fireplace was magically lit, the room was not dusty and drafty, and her beloved was not pissed at her for insisting on going on a picnic after he'd repeatedly pointed out those dark clouds in the horizon.

 

Once more, she has fallen prey to unrealistic portrayals of romance in mass media.

 

With another long sigh, Kristoff unfolds his body and rolls his head. He pulls off his boots with a grunt, then takes off his socks and stretches his legs, wiggling his toes in front of the fireplace. "Take off whatever's wet," he commands without looking at her, standing up.

 

"My _bones_  are wet," she scoffs. "I can't take off that far."

 

She doesn't need to look at him to know he's rolling his eyes. "Then take off whatever you're comfortable taking off," he says, placing one of the chairs closer to the fireplace and laying out his discarded sweater and socks. He then adds his pants to the chair, stands there in front of the fire in his long johns and undershirt, and doesn't even pretend to be embarrassed for her sake.

 

Anna shakes her head and stands up as well, assessing her own situation. She really is wet to the bones - she can feel her drawers clinging to the back of her thighs. In her fantasies, they do end up stripping down and embracing bare naked under the (soft, washed, probably not covered in dead moths) sheets. But she isn't going to let things get there any soon, not when he's being all passive-aggressive on her. For now, she can part with the outer layers: her outer skirt, the corset, and her shirt. The linens stay.

 

"Stockings, too," he says, carelessly laying out her clothes to dry on the other chair. Anna glares at him. "Fine, if you like the feeling of wet feet, it's your call," he shrugs then sits back on the floor in front of the fire.

 

She sits on top of her wet clothes on the chair and angrily lifts up her petticoats. He turns his head to the other side, but the gesture seems more arrogant than proper. She pulls down her garters and stockings, drops them on the floor next to him, then remains seated with her skirts bundled between her knees, exposing her bare calves to the warmth of the fireplace. "You're insufferable," she mumbles.

 

" _I'm_ insufferable?" He huffs, forgetting he was not supposed to look at her. "I'm not the one who made a giant scene because, for some reason, we _had_  to go out today, even if the clouds were about as dark as when that guy Nils was told to build an arc."

 

" _Noah_ ," she corrects him, holding back a laugh. The bishop of Arendelle is convinced he can make a Christian out of Kristoff ("it's in his name!," he said), but Anna knows better.

 

"Whatever," he mumbles.

 

A whimpering grunt from outside catches their attention. They turn to the window: in the dark and under the heavy rain, they can only distinguish Sven's nose pushed up against the glass.

 

"Oh, come _on_ ," Kristoff gets up, gesturing wildly. "What are you doing in the rain? Go back in the shed!"

 

"Does he have food? Maybe he's hungry."

 

"I left him a bucket full of carrots, he's just being an ass," he says, opening the door just enough to stick his head out. Anna pulls up her legs, covers them with her (still damp) petticoats and wraps her arms around her knees.

 

After a few minutes of hissing, coaxing and, from what Anna could tell, some nose scratching, Kristoff comes back to his spot in front of the fire.

 

"The front of your shirt is all wet now," she remarks. He takes it off and glares at her, the blonde hairs on his chest glinting under the fire light.

 

He gets up and adds his undershirt and her stockings to his chair, then starts rummaging through their picnic basket. "Hungry?"

 

"No."

 

"We have a wide variety of... half a wet cheese, some soggy sandwiches and... oh, I hope you like your chocolate cake _really_  moist."

 

"I said I'm not hungry."

 

"Well, I am." He sits back on his spot with two apples and a handful of sandwiches that nearly fall apart as he bites on them.

 

She watches him quietly as he finishes the first sandwich.

 

"It's our 3-month anniversary," she sighs, feeling her voice catch briefly at her throat at the end of the sentence.

 

He stops mid-bite and looks up at her quizzically. "What?"

 

"It's our 3-month anniversary today," she repeated. "But I knew you wouldn't remember that."

 

"Of what, of when we met?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"It's not today."

 

She huffs, indignant. "It _is_  today. I met you on Elsa's coronation, July 1st, today's October 1st, how would I..."

 

"We met on July _second_ ," he corrects.

 

"What _?_ No," she protests. It's her turn to look quizzical.

 

Kristoff lays the other sandwich on a free corner of his chair. "The coronation was July 1st, but it was past midnight when I got to Oaken's. We met on July 2nd."

 

"Uh, no?" She lets out a humorless laugh. "It was half past ten! There was a clock. I looked at it when I came in."

 

"That clock must have been broken, then, because it wouldn't be that dark at half past ten on July 1st. And it was pitch-black when we met!"

 

"Are we really having a fight over what time it was when we met?"

 

"We're not having a fight!"

 

"Well, it sure sounds like one!"

 

Kristoff looks at her, furrowed eyebrows and mouth agape, searching for something to say. He eventually shakes his head, picks his sandwich back and takes a bite, then seems to realize wet sandwiches are actually disgusting and drops it back on the chair.

 

Anna crosses her arms and looks into the fire. What a way to celebrate three months together: with a fight over technicalities in a damp cabin in the middle of nowhere.

 

He shuffles closer to her chair, does a double-take, and sighs. "You're sitting on your wet clothes," he says, exasperated.

 

She shrugs.

 

"They won't dry. And you'll freeze your butt," he laughs.

 

"As if you cared about my butt," she snorts, getting up from the chair and sitting beside him on the floor. (And the worst thing is, he's right. Her drawers seem to have soaked up all the water from the rest of her clothes.)

 

He gives her one of the apples, a hint of a smile on his lips. "I just don't want to see any part of you freezing again."

 

Anna holds the apple between her hands and looks at the fireplace again. It does explain why he was so grumpy, after all: he has seen her literally die before. He must have been so worried, looking for a place for them to hide while the storm poured on their heads. If only she had told him why she wanted so much to have a picnic today, they could have reached a safer compromise. She shifts closer to him and lays her head on his naked shoulder.

 

He plants a kiss on the top of her head. "You know," he breathes against her hair, "I think we both fit on that bed."

 

Anna spares a glance at the bed on the other corner of the room. Calling it a "single" would be generous; it's more of a cot than a bed. It doesn't look comfortable at all, even for one person.

 

She looks up at him, smirking. "We'd have to snuggle really close to each other."

 

"Sounds like a good way to celebrate our 3-month anniversary," he smiles, and leans down for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did check the scene at Wandering Oaken's for a clock and now I'm pretty convinced that clock is broken. The whole scene lasts about two minutes, and you don't see the minutes hand move past the half-hour mark - plus, something that seems to be the seconds hand is stationed at the 12 mark whenever we see the clock behind Oaken, so I'm calling it: Oaken's clock is broken, it was past midnight, and Kristoff is right. Sorry, Anna. (I’m not sorry at all, you got to share a tiny bed with him in the end! And you probably ended up taking off your wet linens, too!)


End file.
